•300 A GLASTONBURY ROMANCE
mind to take off either his hat or his coat. He flung open the door
of Sam's bedroom. Empty it was with, that indescribable look of
desolation that bedrooms of the absent and of the dead so quickly
- assume; and Sam's father stood for a second on the dimly lit
landing, chewing the bitter cud of remediless loss. Then he went
slowly to his own bedroom; and having telephoned to the Geards'
house to tell them what had become of their man. he undressed
and sought his pillow.
But the priest's rest that night was feverish and disturbed.
Nor was its Vicar the only troubled sleeper in Glastonbury. Under
many of her roofs, from the brick tilings of the Town Council's
houses in Benedict Street, to the slate roofs of the tradesmen's
villas in Wells Street, outraged and wounded hearts kept human
souls awake.
Perhaps in one house alone there was absolute peace, in one
house alone a "deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill/' and that
was the house in which Bloody Johnny and Tittle Petherton slept
on the same bed.